The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [163]
“You think it’s going to be that bad?”
“No.” Her face is suddenly somber. “It will be worse.”
Creslin shivers despite the heat and reaches for his undergarments. They dress silently.
“My pallet is bigger,” Megaera says as Creslin pulls on his trousers. She blushes again. “That’s not . . .”
“I know.” He follows her into her room, and they lie down side by side.
“Hold my hand,” she says. “That way . . .”. . . if you need the help. . .
His eyes burn for a moment.
“Don’t get sentimental now,” she warns.
Creslin pushes away the thought and casts his mind toward the high winds of the far north, toward the nodes of those winds, toward the patterns that rule the world’s rains.
The high winds, the great winds, are like rivers of steel, throwing Creslin back toward the south, shaking his senses as a waterspout smashes a ship. He can scarcely sense where he is, tossed and tumbled as he is above the northern seas.
. . . little changes. . .
The warmth that comes with the thought is enough, and he no longer seeks to bend those high, steel torrents; instead, he looks inside, behind, with a nudge here—
—and there. . .
—and there.
The winds twist, howl silently, and lash at the changes and the makers of those changes. Winds the world over shiver and wail as the high winds shift.
At last Creslin returns to Recluce . . . and he lapses into a stupor that is half-sleep, half-coma. Twilight is almost night when he wakes, lifts his head, and puts it down with a gasp.
. . . Creslin. . .
He squeezes her hand silently, holding himself motionless lest he trigger another stab of pain.
Later yet, he turns.
Megaera’s eyes are open. “Are you all right?”
He rubs his forehead. “Yes, I think so.” His neck is sore.
“So is mine.”
After a moment, he adds, “Thank you. It wouldn’t . . . have worked . . . without you.”
Her hand reaches for his, and they lie together in the darkness, hearing the distant wail of the high winds, listening to the shifting storms . . . and dreading the deaths to come.
CXI
“HE’S DONE SOMETHING,” observes the young-faced White Wizard. “I felt it.”
“Who didn’t?” Hartor ponders for a moment. “It wasn’t just Creslin. There was a certain . . . delicacy . . . there. Not the kind of brute force—”
“There was plenty of force. Enough to shift the winds in their courses.”
Hartor rubs his square jaw with his thumb. “I don’t like the feel of it. There was more there than a wind shift.”
“You’re right. But it plays into your hands.”
“So tell me, good Gyretis.” Hartor glances at the blank mirror on the table.
“What’s Creslin’s biggest problem?”
Hartor waves at the young wizard. “Stop the guessing games. Just tell me and be done with it.”
Gyretis shrugs. “Food and water. He’s not wealthy. We shut off Korweil’s coins, and even Westwind isn’t sending a lot of either coin or supplies. Recluce is already too dry, and he just couldn’t wait any longer.”
“Great . . .”
“It is. You’ve already observed that the summer has been dry. What happens when there are no rains in Montgren? Or when the summer rains don’t reach the fields of Kyphros? Or the Westhorns, arid Westwind, are no longer buried in snow rods deep for most of the year?”
“It’s going to change a lot of things.”
“Exactly. I think that now is the time to let all Candar know, quietly of course, that those renegade Blacks on Recluce are going to starve thousands.”
“We can’t exactly post signs or hire criers to shout the story on every corner,” snorts Hartor.
“Rumor is more effective, and more believable.”
Hartor smiles. “So we tell a few people, carefully chosen, and insist that they keep it quiet?”
Gyretis nods.
“And then we make a few more plans . . .”
CXII
CRESLIN STANDS ON the hill crest, at the top of the narrow road he hopes someday will be a grand highway, looking northward beyond the harbor, looking out over the northern waters.
Megaera stands at his shoulder. Both still wear their exercise clothes: sleeveless tunic, trousers, and boots. Both sweat in the late-afternoon heat.
Behind them, the